Friday, 27 July 2012

So Last-Year: Dolce & Gabbana jewellery

One of my current work projects is a book on Traditional Jewellery. 'Traditional Jewellery' is a bit of a dry term - it's what you might think of as folk jewellery but it was worn by people of all different classes; it's basically jewellery that was intended to be worn with traditional or national costumes. This kind of jewellery was massively popular in England in the nineteenth century - probably because we had no national costume of our own - and so was also collected by the V&A in that period.

The material is really diverse and utterly fascinating. My favourite pieces, however, are the massive Italian earrings. The piece of beautiful bling above, for example, from the V&A's collection, measures 8.6cm. Which is bringing me slowly around to the Dolce & Gabbana image at the top of this post, and the one that appears below.

I think these new adverts are gorgeous and I couldn't help but notice - well, you can't really miss - the massive earrings being worn by the models. A little internet research and I learnt they are from Dolce & Gabbana's first jewellery collection. Called 'Made in Italy', it's inspired by, yep, Italy's traditional jewellery.

From the V&A's collection, this gold earring from Naples measures 12.8cm.

Here's some more traditional style jewellery in the Dolce & Gabanna adverts, shown with the late twentieth century/early twenty-first century traditional statement handbag.

Seriously though, I love their interpretation of the jewellery. Like the best bits of D&G, it plays with their Italian heritage and makes it look so god damn sexy.

But that's not all. Their whole Autumn/Winter collection is an opulent Italian delight: gold earrings, headpieces and ornate embroidery.

Mila Kunis smoulders in this dress in the current issue of Elle. Close-up, you get to see those roses are a beautiful cross-stitch design - to be honest I never thought cross stitch could make it on the catwalk in a non-ironic way, but it looks completely beautiful.

Traditional craftmanship made to look not only totally relevant but also totally ravishing too - what more could you ask for?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Visualize yourself as you looked on a beautiful autumn day last year. There's not much of the picture that survives. Not the hemline, waistline or the shoulderline ... If you're not a Last-Year Girl. You'll like the feel of a longer, fuller skirt flowing around you as you move ... You'll enjoy having hips again - without apologies; and the satisfaction of a small, rounded, tapering waist and of having it show in the snug bodice tops. You can have it all.